A thousand years ago, the Vikings had a shock encounter with Native Americans that ended in disaster

“According to the Norse sagas, the expeditions from Greenland to North America meet the indigenous people who live in these parts,” explains historian and Old Norse expert Eleanor Barraclough, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.

This unprecedented encounter brought together peoples separated by thousands of miles and shaped by different environments, technologies and belief systems. And it began, as many tales of Norse adventure do, with violence and exile.

Exiles in search of new lands

The story of the journey by the Norse settlers of Greenland, to the shores of what is now Canada, begins with Erik the Red.

The father of Leif Erikson, Erik was a man whose temper and penchant for murder had seen him outlawed from both Norway and, later in his life, Iceland, where he had been a prominent figure.

• Read more | The secrets of the Viking Great Army

Banished, Erik sailed west from Iceland in search of new lands. With a small fleet of ships and his followers in tow, he landed on Greenland, creating official Norse settlements on it around AD 985.

Barraclough explains that for a volatile but powerful – and ambitious – character like Erik the Red, the allure of Greenland was partly in the promise of the unknown.

“I think, Erik, on a personal level, must have been very charismatic. Dangerous and murderous, but charismatic,” she says. “To [explore across the Atlantic] requires a Wild West mentality – and so someone like Erik would be the perfect person to settle somewhere like Greenland, because it's going into the unknown,” explains Barraclough.

Greenland offered land and space but, it turned out, little else. “Even at its height, Erik’s settlement only has a population in the very low thousands,” says Barraclough.

• Read more | 10 incredible Viking stories from Norse mythology

The harsh winters and limited resources ultimately prompted further expeditions westward from Greenland, again into unknown territory, in search of more land. The Norse sagas describe that it was Erik’s son, Leif, who led these expeditions. But what was he searching for?

As Barraclough puts it, “It does look like resources are important. A sense of adventure is important, a sense of discovery, but also the possibility of new settlement.”

The voyage to Vinland

Setting off from the Western shores of Greenland, Leif Erikson’s expedition likely reached the coast of Labrador – which the Norse called Markland, or ‘forest land’ – before sailing further south to what they named Vinland, believed to be the northern tip of Newfoundland.

• Read more | The truth about Viking beserkers

The sagas describe Leif discovering a landscape rich in timber and resources, a sharp contrast to the rocky, forbidding coastline of Greenland.

But the Norse certainly weren’t alone.

First contact – and first trade

Soon after landing, they encountered the indigenous peoples of the region, likely ancestors of the Beothuk or other Algonquian-speaking groups. The Norse explorers called these people the ‘Skraelings’, which Barraclough translates as “wretched ones” or “puny ones”.

But despite the derogatory name, according to the evidence from the Norse sagas, the first interactions between the Norse and the native American communities were initially peaceful.

• Read more | Norse gods and goddesses: the deities of the Vikings

“It starts off fairly amicably,” Barraclough says. “They're exchanging goods, trading dairy products for cloth, for skins and for pelts.”

The scenes are striking in their familiarity. Much like later European explorers, the Norse initially engaged in cautious barter. But the similarities don’t end there – nor do they offer much cause for optimism.

From trade to bloodshed

Despite the peaceful start, the relationship soon soured and hostility flared.

“Eventually the relationship breaks down,” Barraclough explains. “The Norse kill some of the people living there, and then obviously there are retaliations.”

• Read more | The legend of the Jomsvikings

Quickly, this burgeoning relationship between two distinct cultures from across the Atlantic descended into a spiral of retaliatory violence and bloodshed.

“That’s the point where they say: we can’t set up home there,” says Barraclough.

Outnumbered and out of place

The Vikings soon abandoned the relative riches of the land they’d ‘discovered’ to return home to Greenland, after effectively being chased off by the native inhabitants. However, Leif Erikson wasn’t the only Norse explorer to attempt settlement.

The sagas recount multiple expeditions to Vinland, involving other children of Erik’s, but these later expeditions to the edge of the North American continent shared the same fate – cut short by violence, a lack of supplies, and not enough support from the broader Norse world at large.

• Read more | The life of Freydis Eiriksdottir

Unlike earlier Viking expeditions into Europe that also collided violently with the inhabitants of richer lands, these Greenlandic explorers lacked the numbers and infrastructure to impose control on this new and resource-rich region, or to assimilate into it.

“They've just gone so far beyond what is culturally recognisable to them that there's nothing to assimilate into,” says Barraclough. “The numbers aren't there, the backup isn't there, but also that cultural familiarity isn't there either.”

Why nothing lasted

Despite their bold explorations – first to Greenland and then on from Greenland itself – Vikings never established a lasting presence in North America. Ultimately, Erik’s settlement of Greenland wouldn’t last either.

As the Viking Age drew to a close across Europe, and after the failed expeditions to North America, the Greenlanders became increasingly isolated from their kin in the east. Over centuries the Greenland colony shrank away, eventually dissipating entirely.

• Read more | What was life like for Viking women?

“Life gets harder and harder for the Greenlanders. It looks like it's a fizzle rather than a bang in terms of how Norse Greenland comes to an end. But we know that by around AD 1500 they're gone.”

Unlike so many other instances from the history of the Vikings and their Norse colonies, the Greenlandic Norse explorers found a land – and a people – where they were unable to leave lasting influence. They journeyed to the edge of the known world, and beyond it, but what – and who – they found there decidedly rejected them.

The Vikings | A short course from HistoryExtra Academy

Member exclusive | Join Professor Ryan Lavelle for our four-week course on the Viking period, covering everything from trading and raiding, to daily life.

Explore the course now

This article is based on an interview with Eleanor Barraclough, speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.